segmentation fault unix shell - c

Question

I have an assignment for school where I have to create a shell which can do the following:
read incoming command, parse each part of command
fork child process and execute each command without (< > >> |)
successfully execute each command with <, >, >>
successfully execute each command with |
I am seriously lost... I am new to shell and I have no clue on what to do from here.
My code gives me an error stating segmentation fault (core dumped). Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#define MAX_ARG 10
int main()
{
char line [256];
char prompt[] = "sh2 % ";
char command[256], *args[MAX_ARG];
int pid;
char status;
int i;
/* spit out the prompt */
printf("%s", prompt );
while( fgets(line, sizeof line, stdin) != NULL)
{
/* fgets leaves '\n' in input buffer. ditch it */
line [strlen(line)-1] = '\0';
while (line != NULL)
{
//parse command and arg
args[0] = strtok(line, " "); //grab command
for (i=1; i<MAX_ARG; i++) //grab arguments, to assume max = 10?
{
//if a single command with arguments then set command & argument
//for (i>0)
{
// check to see if the command is 'exit'
if(!strcmp("exit", args[i]))
{
exit(0);
}
{
int p[2];
pipe(p)
if (fork() == 0) //child
{
close (0);
dup(p[0]);
exec("cmd2");
}
else
{
close(1);
close(p[0]);
close(p[1]);
dup(p[1]);
exec("cmd1");
}
close(0);
open("stdout.txt", "r");
if (fork()== 0)
{
exec("cmd3");
}
}
else if (!strcmp(">", args[i]))
open("stderr.txt". "w")
if (fork() == 0)
{
exec("cmd1");
}
}
else if (!strcmp(">>", args[i]))
{
close(1);
open("stdout_stderr.txt", "w");
if (fork() == 0)
{
close(2);
dup(1);
exec("cmd2");
}
}
else
{
pid = fork();
if (pid == 0)
{
status = execvp(command,args);
exit(0);
}
else
{
waitpid(-1);
}
}
}
}
}
}
return 0;
}

Answer 1

You have quite a few things wrong in your program, so it's hard to point to one line and say change this. I think you are trying to do too much at once and not building on a solid base.
In programming you want to start small and build on your progress, your professor did you a favor by lining up the steps:
read incoming command, parse each part of command
fork child process
and execute each command without (< > >> |)
successfully execute
each command with <, >, >>
successfully execute each command with |
Try to get #1 working befor moving on to #2 and as mentioned before using functions is going to help a lot. I would suggest looking at this post http://bytes.com/topic/c/answers/215994-writing-shell-c which will give you a simple shell you could model from. Here is a baseline parser to get you started on #1 (based on the post mentioned)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
char line[4096] = {0};
char safeline[4096] = {0};
int done = 0;
int i = 0;
char *s = line;
char **t = NULL;
char *prompt = ">";
char *args = NULL;
char *nl = NULL;
int main(void)
{
while(!done)
{
printf("%s", prompt);
fflush(stdout);
if(NULL == fgets(line, sizeof line, stdin))
{
t = NULL;
done = 1;
}
else
{
nl = strchr(line, '\n');
if(nl != NULL)
{
*nl = '\0';
strcpy(safeline, line);
}
else
{
int ch;
printf("Line too long! Ignored.\n");
while((ch = getchar()) != '\n' && ch != EOF)
{
continue;
}
if(ch == EOF)
{
done = 1;
}
}
args = strchr(line, ' ');
if(args != NULL)
{
*args++ = '\0';
}
if(!done)
{
printf("command - %s : args - %s\n",s, args);
}
}
}
}